Design Tactics: Building Worlds of Warfare

Since its launch in 2011, World of Tanks has secured over 85
million players worldwide. With its
blend of military strategy, vehicle
customization, and fast action PvP, it appeals to hardcore military enthusiasts
and casual players alike.

Building a game like World of Tanks has many of the same obstacles as a typical MMO, but also includes some unique
development hurdles. Get In Media spoke to Chris
Keeling take a closer look at how
Wargaming has risen to meet those challenges.

Get In
Media: Can you tell us briefly about
your position within Wargaming.net?Chris
Keeling: As director of product vision,
my job is to make sure our internal and
external studios have all of the design and production support they need; mostly in the Western Hemisphere, but
working jointly with our eastern studios on
several facets of development. This
includes research assistance, UX testing, level and map design support, transmedia development, studio and
pitch evaluation, game economy balancing,
and process management. My team reports
directly to our headquarters in Cyprus and handles external game projects directly to reduce the impact on
development in our internal studios. We’re
spinning up some truly amazing new products that will be announced over the next year or two on multiple platforms, and I am happy to be able to play a role in
the design and production of these games.

GIM: How important was historical accuracy in the design
process of the tanks and battlefields of World of Tanks?CK: While there is an impressive amount of historical
accuracy in World of Tanks,
we still want to ensure that our players are having the most enjoyable experience possible. Accuracy
implies more of a simulation, and World of Tanks is too much fun to be a
simulation. We wanted to provide the feel
of being there, the awesome power of the tanks,
the constant knife-edge struggle for supremacy in battles centered around deserted villages, hills, and even
rock formations. By modeling the tanks
and their damage models with as much historical accuracy as we could find, we’ve not only shown that we know what the
real tanks are all about and how they work, but
we’ve provided that essential link to the
realities of historical warfare that let players bond with their machines. Many of the maps are based on historical
battlefields as well, but of course we have had
to make some small changes to keep the
game fun.

GIM: What are some of the notable sacrifices made to that
realism for the sake of better gameplay?CK: Well, first of all, you’re fighting in mixed company—where
else would you find pre-WWII German tanks
and postwar French tanks fighting alongside
wartime Soviet tanks? There were no real battles like this, but the variety of tanks lends itself better to game
balance and matchmaking. The battlefields
have been reduced in size to make matches
more active and stay within the 15-minute time limit, and we’ve also had to make some changes to the tanks,
especially when estimating some of the
factors on tanks that only made it to prototype drawings and never saw combat. Plus, having to get your crew out of the tank to spend an hour changing a track when
it breaks wouldn’t have been any fun, so
repairs are much faster. To compensate for this we have recently added historical battles, which limit players to the
actual models of the specific tanks that
participated in each battle, organized by
nationality. This is a very interesting gameplay mode, and currently my favorite.

GIM: The lore of World
of Tanks seems more like an equipment manual. Did the team need to consult with military experts to
get accurate representations of the
vehicles?CK: We have a lot of military advisors. I have a team of
several researchers here in Austin
currently spending much of their time finding
accurate blueprints of World War II ships for our World of Warships team,
and we have over a dozen in Eastern Europe who specialize in tanks and planes, plus each studio has its own historical specialists to help guide research and
validate accuracy. We comb archives and
museums to make sure we get the models correct, and we even measure armor thicknesses and record engine, gunfire, and
track audio to get the sounds right. On top of
that, we have our own military experts in
some of our offices—not to mention a community of millions of interested players—who will quickly tell us when we
get something wrong.

GIM: What are some unique challenges to a game that relies
so heavily on historical content?CK: We have to be very careful about balancing the
authenticity of the game with the
gameplay, like I said earlier. While most players just don’t go to the nuts and bolts level of detail that we
do, there are many who are real experts in the field who are
playing our games. These are the ones who
will inform us if a bolt or a headlight is out of place. Getting those features accurate while balancing them with
the arcade-style gameplay is the challenge, and
from the amount of players we have, I
think we’ve found the right balance.

GIM: What do you think the realism of the game adds to its
playability?CK: When you’re in the game, you’re focused on that next
hill, the nearest building, or a good
place to hide in case you get hurt. The feel
of the threat when a heavy tank lumbers over the hill or you suddenly spot a tank destroyer that has you in their
sights elevates your adrenaline. The raw
power of your tank can be relied on to keep you safe, but there’s always a tank out there with a bigger gun, or
thicker armor, or who is spotting for the enemy
artillery. The depth of this mixture of
rock-paper-scissors mechanics with moment-to-moment critical decisions in one-on-one combat makes the game
feel real right up until your tank erupts
in flames, giving an immediate and very tactile
association with the actual risks and dangers of historical tanks in combat that comes through every match.

GIM:World of Tanks
has spawned two more games, World of
Warplanes and World of Warships. What lessons were learned during the development of World of
Tanks that benefited these new games?CK: We’re still learning—these games push the fast-paced
combat action vehicle game genre in
opposite directions, exploring new ways to
think and play, and focusing on different kinds of players. For example, World
of Warplanes plays a lot faster than World
of Tanks. You can’t stop for a
breather behind a rock to chat with your teammates;
if you stop at all, gravity takes over and your plan starts to fall! There’s little cover—clouds up high and
mountains and buildings down low, but not
much in between. You’re constantly looking for
trouble, and this lends itself to fast-action players who prefer shooter-type games. World of Warships, on the other hand, is much slower in pace, requires a lot more player cooperation
and strategy, and thus we expect it will
be more popular among strategy gamers and probably
an older audience than we’re addressing with World of Warplanes.
Of course, we’ve done a lot of growing since World of Tanks came out, so
things like improvements in balance, economy, art, accounts, servers, and engine are all ongoing, and
driver conflicts have long since been
sorted out.

GIM: World of Tanks
has a record-breaking population. Do you think part of that is because the game appeals to more than one genre of
player?CK: Over 85 million accounts and growing, and we’ve
managed to have over 1.1 million players
in Russia on our World of Tanks
servers at the same moment. That’s pretty
phenomenal. While much of our appeal is cultural,
there are lots of ways to find the fun in playing. Whether you collect tanks or achievements, tinker with your
tank configurations, customize your
favorites with camo and decals, zip around
the field scouting in light tanks, plod into battle in thick-skinned heavies, or support by fire from a
self-propelled artillery piece, there’s a
place. Our games fall under the free-to-play
business model, so anyone can try whatever they want. Even if you’re not the best player out there, battling
is fun, and those occasional winning
streaks are all the more rewarding.

GIM:World of Tanks
seems to strike a good balance between RPG, MMO, and military strategy. What are some things the design team does to
ensure it continues to appeal to such a wide
audience?CK: We’re constantly rebalancing to make sure everything
is fair and adding new content, like more
tanks, maps, and game modes. We also look
closely at critical feedback, both from within the community and through playtests and UX studies, to see what we can
make better. Outside of the game itself,
our publishing teams come up with contests,
missions, and sales to engage different players and provide more ways to interact with the core gameplay. Plus,
we’ve added two platforms, with dedicated
versions of World of Tanks for the
Xbox 360 and tablets. We can always do
more, and we will continue to do as much as
we can to keep expanding and improving all of our games.